Faith and Science
by EvenOdds
Summary: Artemis Crock is an intern at S.T.A.R Labs, accompanied by her annoying (but brilliant) partner, Wally West. When Artemis comes up for a theory to change a human's speed, Wally agrees to be experimented on. What follows is chaos, and eventually everyone just has to stick up for faith and science. (Spitfire-y AU)
1. The Beginning

"Hey! Hey, you! Wait _up, GODDAMMIT!"_

I got a few stares, but obviously I didn't care what I was yelling, as long as it got the cabbie to stop and give me a minute. Which he did, probably an outcome that resulted from my...eh...choice of words.

"You coulda just waved," he grumbled.

"Well, I didn't feel like doing that today, so unlucky you." I quipped back, and then remembered what I was supposed to be doing. "I need to get somewhere _fast_. S.T.A.R. Labs, actually."

"That's half an hour away, and with traffic this time a'day, when everybody's tryin' ta get ta work-"

"I tip heavily. In fact, I'm a tipping _goddess._ A tipping _empress._ Get. Driving. Now." Too bad if he was reluctant. This was important.

"Fine, fine." He gave a big sigh, but he put his foot to the wheel and sped off in the streets.

I took out my phone, and, after tapping in my password, I dialed in a number. After two rings, the other line picked up.

"Hey, Crock." A cheery voice said.

"Don't sound so excited. Set my stuff up. I might be a few minutes off-schedule."

"Did you sleep late again?"

"Shut up. You know already. Alarm clocks are useless."

I heard a muffled laugh over the line.

"You have no place, Wally. Just make sure my equipment's ready." I said miserably.

"Roger that, Crock. Over."

The other disconnected. I turned my phone off and stuck it in my bag. I usually did n't like to show too much emotion (don't think of me as Vulcan-it was just something my father had drilled in to me) but I couldn't keep a smile from creeping its way across my face. I mean, today was big. Today was _huge._

I had a bit of time in front of me, so I mulled over my plan.

 _Step one: secure the subject._

 _Step two: connect the headset._

 _Step three: position the chemical tubes._

 _Step four: simultaneously enact electric pulse and chemical tubes._

It seemed simple-I mean, only four steps-but it could be the breakthrough of the century. And I, a lowly intern, had come up with it. I couldn't stop myself from beaming in pride.

And then there was my partner. Brilliant. And extremely annoying. But he'd volunteered for this experiment, so I prayed it would be successful.

"We're here." The driver said gruffly, and held out his hand. I dropped a generous bill, grabbed my bag, and leapt out from the car. I hit the ground running, and run I did, through the lobby, flashing my ID at the guards, and then up flights and flights of stairs to the chem lab level. I burst through pristine white doors and almost slammed right into a figure in front of me.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Crock! Take it easy."

I cursed myself. It was Wally West, resident intern, and, most recently, test subject.

"Well, how was I supposed to know you happened to be right there?" I pulled my ponytail tight and briskly started to walk towards our lab.

"Rocket and Kent say that the tech's good to go. Ahm checked the chemicals and got them in the tubes. And Morse, Zatara and Grayson have the software perfect." Wally caught up with me.

"I still can't believe I got all the researchers to listen to me." I shook my head and gave him a rare smile. He grinned. "Tell me about it."

We walked into a lab. It had a row of computers lining one wall, a lab desk piled with gadgets, goggles, an lab coats on the other. Beside the computers was a door that led into the experiment room-what we call the room where we were going to set my theory on Wally.

When Dr. Bartholomew Allen-head of S.T.A.R. Labs' chemical wing, and Wally's uncle-heard of my idea, he hired a bunch of lab workers to help me make it a reality. So now I got to order them around, and they made whatever tech or formulas I needed to enact my project. They were surprisingly kind to Wally and I, never acting condescending, but we called them all by their last names. Except for Raquel Ervin, an engineer, who insisted we call her "Rocket." I guess because of her job? She did help structure spacecraft when she wasn't helping with my project. Besides that, there was Conner Kent, a brooding engineer, Kaldur'ahm, a brilliant chemist with Pacific Island roots, Megan Morse, a bubbly comp sci expert, Zatanna Zatara, a kind software engineer, and Dick Grayson, who checked all the software for weaknesses and patched it up.

"It's the girl of the hour," Zatara turned away from her computer and smiled.

"You ready?" Grayson asked.

"You know it." I replied, trying not to appear as nervous as I felt inside.

"Everything is set up. Might I suggest we begin?" Ahm said, regarding us quietly.

"There's no time like the present." I pulled my ponytail again and reached for a lab coat. Wally dissapeared into a side-room, and when he came out, he wore a grey garment that covered his whole body, excepting the head, with metal tubes attached down the sides. It was going to magnify the electric current we were going to zap him with. He took a deep breath and started to go through to the experiment room, but I grabbed his arm.

"What's up?" He turned back towards me,

"Just...be...alive when you come out, okay?" I couldn't think of any better words.

He grinned. "Of course, babe." Before I could yell at him for that, he dissapeared inside the experiment room. I took a sear next to the computers and looked through the glass wall that separated the lab and the two spaces.

Wally laid down on the metal slab that was waiting. Ahm joined him in the room and strapped him to the slab with the leather cords attached to it.

 _Step one: secure the subject. Complete._

Ahm took the metal helmet from a shelf, plugged some wires into it, and fitted it to Wally's head.

 _Step two: connect the headset. Complete._

He then took the hollow tubes and fitted spray nozzles to the ends. I gave a nod to Zatara, and she pressed a button. The tubes filled with liquid substances, to be sprayed on command.

 _Step three: position the chemical tubes. Complete._

Ahm walked out of the room and closed the door firmly behind him. He said, "He's ready."

I looked at Wally. He laid, the helmet on his head hooked to wires in the ceiling, chemical tubes positioned over him to spray him at command.

I took a deep breath.

"Morse, please activate the electric current on command. Grayson, open the chemical nozzle at the same time."

"Ready." They chorused.

 _Three._

 _Two._

 _One._

"Go."


	2. Abilities

"We're on!"

It was amazing.

Flashes of reds and yellows and greens and every concoction of light and color that you could imagine with a human's sight filled the experiment room. The team of researchers-Kent, Rocket, Ahm, Zatara, Morse and Grayson-were as much in awe of it as I was. In fact, I'm pretty sure we all forgot about Wally.

Well, just up until he screamed. Like, really, really loudly.

"Oh my God, Morse, Grayson, shut it off! Shut it off! We're killing him!" I bent over the computers, in hysterics. I could barely see; the light was clouding my eyes. It hurt my head, like when you look right at the sun, but this was different. This was...weird.

Zatara, Morse and Grayson pushed in front of me to reach the computers. Grayson slammed his hand to a button, Morse to another one-

And it all stopped. My team stood motionless, but I was bouncing back and forth on my feet.

"I'm going in, guys." I ran towards the door, not waiting for feedback. I fumbled with the handle, but I forced the door open and headed for the slab of metal with Wally West upon it.

I took of the helmet from his head and lifted the chemical nozzles away from him, setting both things in their places.

Then I put two fingers on his neck and felt for a pulse.

It wasn't there.

"Oh, my God."

I stood. I was frozen. I lifted his arm and felt his wrist, but still, there was nothing. Both hands went up to my mouth, and my eyes got dangerously cloudy.

"Artemis?" Zatara was in the doorframe, followed by the rest of the team. They looked at me, which wasn't good, because I probably looked like hell.

I was planted where I was, but I raised a hand and pointed to Wally's motionless body. Kent got the picture first, and lucky for me, he's hard to shake. "I'm getting the defibrillator. There's still time." He raced out from the lab with almost superhuman speed. This tipped off the rest of the team, and they came into the room with me.

"I failed." I choked the words out. "I _killed_ him." I sank down to a crouch on the floor.

Zatara knelt next to me and put one arm around my shoulder. I reached and slipped my hand into Wally's.

Just then, Kent ran in with the defibrillator. "Come on! Snap out of it, we have to do this!" He angrily plunked the machine on the floor and rubbed the two extensions together. When they were ready, he pressed them on Wally's chest. The team and I crowded around him anxiously.

And the strangest thing happened.

Electricity, instead of jolting Wally back to life, was visibly flowing through the defibrillator's wires. They glowed, and Kent took his hands off of the ends. The electricity grew until the effect was blinding, a red and yellow force surging through them, surging through Wally himself.

"Ah!" I had forgotten that I'd been holding Wally's hand, and when I got a shock, I pulled it down and rubbed it with my fingers. I looked up at him, not knowing what to expect.

And then he woke.

He sat up on the slab of metal. His skin was fine, but where there were veins, little currents of that colorful electricity ran through along with blood. He looked at his hands, then up at us. The electricity slowly faded, and he looked normal once again.

"Did...did it work?" He examined himself again, trying for evidence of a change-a change in _speed._

I was all-buisness now. I briskly wiped my eyes, mulling over the electricity, the strange force. I stood up and took the defibrillators from where they had fallen on the floor, putting them back where they were supposed to be. Then I stood in front of Wally.

I'd never really noticed how green his eyes were.

I delivered my verdict.

"It worked. It actually worked."

Morse let out a little "squee" and the rest of the team followed. They whooped and hollered and cheered, creating a racket that could probably be heard all over that floor, and I stood, where I was, in front of Wally.

He stood up and hugged me hard. I hugged him back, and finally let the triumphant thought take over my mind.

We had done it.

We had created a superpowered human.

* * *

"You ready?"

"As I'll ever be, babe."

"Shut up."

Wally and I were at Central City High on a weekend. It was a pretty small school, so there weren't a lot of people there for clubs and things when the work week ended.

Lucky for us. That meant we got to use the track. Our team of researchers were stationed outside and around the gym to make sure nobody would witness our little...test.

"Okay. When I say go, run twenty laps. I'm timing you." I tapped my pen against the clipboard in my hand and gave him an impatient look.

"Twenty laps?" He mock-groaned. I gave him another look.

"Okay, fine." He sighed, and readied himself at the beginning of the track.

I put a finger on the button on my stopwatch. "Okay, run!" I called, and pushed the button.

 _Fwoom!_

He was back. I brushed my hair out of my eyes and checked my stopwatch.

"Holy _shit!_ " I swore with glee. "Three and a half seconds!"

"Awesome!" Wally grinned. "Let's do it again and see if I can make it faster."

"Oh...well...yeah, we could use with an average." Besides, we had the track for a day. Might as well wear ourselves out.

So Wally ran, and ran, and ran, and it was _insane._ Every time he rounded the twenty-lap mark, it was less than five seconds. And this wasn't a short track. The hours went by faster than we could keep track of, and before I could tell, the sun was low in the sky.

"Let's keep that at the last one." I laughed as Wally skidded to a stop right in front of me. I hadn't been in a mood this good since...well... never. When we revealed Wally's abilities to Dr. Allen, he had said that he wouldn't doubt if we made the papers along with the Justice League. I smiled and tipped my head up to the sky.

"Hey...Artemis?" His voice was soft, a bit out of breath. I looked back to him. We were standing inches away from each other.

"Yeah? I answered.

"Well...just...thanks. For this. If I hadn't met you, this would never have happened to me. And this is amazing, these things I can do know. You're brilliant, you know that?" He smiled at me, and I felt my head go numb.

"Don't act like you're any less." I tried to play it down.

And then his hand was behind my head, pulling me to him, and I was fine with it, and we were almost-

"Uh, hey. Um. Guys? We, uh, have to go." Kent stood behind us, rubbing his neck in an embarrassed gesture. Wally and I broke apart, smoothing our clothes and trying to act nonchalant.

"Yeah. Of course." I pulled my ponytail and walked past Kent to the rest of the school. Wally followed, but not close behind.

 _Dammit, Kent._


	3. When Life Gives You Lemons

"Your glucose levels are freaky low, so make sure you eat. A lot. I'm not kidding."

I tapped a keyboard, submitting notes on Wally's condition while he sat on a cot, hooked up to various mechanisms. He nodded, grinning. "Done."

"And I think that's it." I saved the document and exited the word program. I walked over to the cot and pulled the tubes from Wally's body, set them on a side-table, and handed him his jacket. He shrugged it on, and stood up. While I busied myself checking and shutting down other software on different computers-we were going home for the night, and our team had left-he stayed where he was and watched me intently. It had been three days since we had tested out his speed on the track. Two days since we'd...you know...had a moment. And that sounded ridiculously cheesy to me. I am not sentimental. Not under most circumstances. But then again this wasn't most circumstances.

He started to say something.

"Arty-"

"Don't call me that." I gave him a look.

"Okay, fine. But I have an idea." He said this cautiously.

"Which idea?"

"What if I could use my...abilities...my powers...for good?"

I eyed him. "What kind of good?"

"You know, saving people, stopping crime, helping the city be a safer place."

"You sound like a comic book."

"For all we know, we could _be_ a comic book. I mean, take Batman." He grinned.

"So, West, you want to be Batman?"

"No, not like him. Not like that. He...scares people, you know? I'd rather people see me as someone who could save them. A friend. A hero, maybe. You know, I could be at crime scenes, and then-" He made a "whoosh" gesture with his arm-"I'd be gone. In a flash."

I snorted. Wally winced, and then I felt bad. I actually had a bit of experience with hero stuff-don't get me started on my foster dad-but I mean, Wally. I decided to think out loud.

"Just...it's...you, Wally. I can't imagine you going out and being...that."

"We could do it together, babe." He teased. I smiled a bit.

"Well, I guess, if you really wanted to..." I bit my lip. He looked at me expectantly. I sighed. "Look, I guess we could hunt for d-level stuff for you to bust, but you can't go all-out. Just, like, convenience store robberies or something, okay? Don't look to save the world."

"Why not?"

His question struck me. Why not?

"Those kinds of crusades only end one way. You almost died once, and you're not going to again." I cut off the conversation and walked towards the lab entrance, leaving Wally to contemplate what I had said.

* * *

"Seven-twelve-two Forrest street, please." I handed the taxi driver a bill, and then leaned back in my seat as he sped off.

I wondered whether Wally was still in the lab. Maybe he'd gone home. He told me once that his family was here, in Central.

And as the taxi drove, I thought of my family, my home,

I was born and raised in Gotham. My dad was one of the strongest mob bosses there were, and my mother was like his queen. My older sister, Jade, and I had been trained to fight and in the ways of the street. Daddy expected us to take over Gotham with his men, and so he taught us how.

And the him and my mother had a disagreement.

And it ended with her being shot in the spine.

Now she's in a wheelchair forever.

My father's gang broke up, and he dissapeared. Rumor had it he was working underground drug deals south of Gotham.

Soon as he went radio-silent, so did my sister. She was stealthy. Like the Cheshire cat in a sea of skyscrapers. We never found her.

And as soon as Oliver Queen offered school and boarding along with an internship and S.T.A.R. Labs for Gotham North High's best freshman, my grades soared.

And I guess the kids in my school don't try very hard, so I won.

In my summer from eighth to ninth grade I stayed in Star City, at the Queen mansion.

And eventually I found out I'd been getting to know the Green Arrow.

And he taught me things. Things he thought I'd be able to use one day.

And with all this turmoil with Wally's powers going on, I just might be able to.

"We're here, miss." The cabbie stops and I hand him a tip. I step out to my apartment building-condos courtesy of the Queen family- and shut the car's door behind me. It drives off as I pull my messenger bag up on my shoulder and walk towards the entrance.

I punch in a code in a small silver box mounted on the side of the building, and a gate slides open. I wall through, and then sprint up flights of stairs to my apartment on the top floor. My mother thought it was downright insane to let someone of my age live alone, but Oliver convinced her that Central City was relatively safe, and I could take care of myself.

I got to the top floor. My room was the first in the hall. I unlocked it with my key and trudged in, throwing my bag and jacket onto the sofa and closing the door behind me again. I flop onto the couch, overlooking a beautiful floor-to-ceiling window view of Central, but then I see the stack of papers and books on the coffee table. I sigh. Though I'm living and working here, I still have to do homework from my school back in Gotham. I rub my eyes.

Might as well start.

* * *

 **Hi readers! First off, kudos to everyone who reviewed/favorited/followed, because I love you guys. Second, please don't hate me for short and crappily written chapters! I'm in a bit of a rush-I don't want you to get bored, so I try to get updates up relatively soon. Stay asterous and keep telling me what you think!**

 **XO, Odds**


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